by Brian Keenan
Then, as suddenly as he had arrived, he was gone. His disappearance amplified the silence incredibly. We had reached an area where the hillside levelled out. We were above the tree line, and even the dwarf trees and bushes seemed to have long ago ceased trying to colonize where we stood. After a few minutes’ resting and taking in the land rolling away into eternity, Debra suggested that it might be a good place to work on me. I looked around. In front of us, the hill continued to rise but only for what seemed like another few hundred yards. ‘No, let’s carry on to the top,’ I said, hardly knowing why. So we climbed on to see what was on the other side.
The top of the hill proved to be as barren and bleak a place as anywhere you could imagine in the Arctic. Nothing grew here beyond a tight skin of tundra grass. Here and there, rocks broke through the surface. It was a superb natural crow’s nest from which you could look out on thousands upon thousands of miles of emptiness in that strange Arctic sunlight that seemed to multiply your normal horizon. At one side of me, the huge ocean glinted like polished pewter; the other three quarters of my vision, at each side and behind me, threw up the endless Arctic. It was profound and magical and terrifying all at once, and for a moment it wasn’t a place at all, but rather the allegory of a place – somewhere imagined, the backcloth of fairy-tales and myths.
‘Where is that?’ I asked, pointing to the boiling grey ocean.
Deborah’s soft voice beside me answered, ‘That’s where the Chukchi Sea and the Arctic Ocean meet.’
I looked round at the land. The tree line below us seemed to be waiting in a semi-circle, afraid to come any further. Beyond that, the endless tracery of mountain and valley. ‘This seems like a good place, let’s do it here,’ I announced. I hadn’t a clue why; the words seemed to have been sucked out of me.
Debra looked at me for several seconds saying nothing, then walked in a slow circle around me, studying the place as if she was absorbing something from it. I watched her briefly, and then looked back at the sea. This might be a meeting place of the oceans, but the sky and the sea also seemed to flow into each other. The liquid grey of the water and the metallic blue of the sky were in perfect harmony. The silence of the place was rushing up from all around me.
‘Come, come over here, Brian,’ came Debra’s voice out of the quiet.
I turned and saw her standing beside a cleft of rock that had pushed itself out of the earth, as if waiting to receive me. I walked towards it.
‘Your Celtic intuition is very strong in you,’ Debra said. ‘This is a powerful place. The winds from the four quarters blow right through here and will carry away anything that needs to be got rid of.’
‘Which way shall I face?’ I asked.
‘Whichever direction you wish,’ she replied.
I chose to look out on the elemental fusion of sky and sea. I could throw myself into its tranquil emptiness.
‘Best remove your coat and shirt, but leave on one layer as it’s cold up here.’
I did as I was bid, like a child undressing for a doctor’s examination, half curious, half fearful.
‘I’ll work on your back first, as that’s what we both know about. But let me first look at the problem.’
I sat on my altar of Arctic stone while Debra squatted invisibly behind me. A sense of approaching somewhere quite profound was strong in me. Here I was, a million light years away from anything I had previously experienced, in an alien landscape, yet one I had instinctively chosen, as if there was some correspondence between it and me. What had I really got to know of Debra in the few days we had spoken together? Practically nothing. But at the same time, everything I needed to know to hand myself over to her ministrations.
I sat, as oblivious as the stone that supported me, while Debra’s hand searched and manipulated my back. We said nothing to each other. Then she stopped and walked round to my side where I could see her. She spoke softly but matter of factly, explaining that she had been doing much ‘travelling’ in the spirit realm, consulting with her advisers about me and this trip. There were certain things she could not ask as she had not been given permission, and there were many things she didn’t know as she had been unsure about what I sought from her. She now understood my back pain, but it was worse than she had speculated. I looked at her, my curiosity and fear levels shooting up several points. She read my anxiety instantaneously, though I was sure my features had not changed in any way. I was still half entranced by the supernatural magic of the place.
‘Do not worry,’ Debra said. ‘I can help you and take this thing away from you and you will feel no pain. Do you still want me to continue?’
She was not so much asking me as reassuring me, so I nodded and answered, ‘Do what you have to.’
She looked at me for a moment, then explained that what she had diagnosed was that my back was covered in scales. They were not scales such as you find on a fish. They were huge, and they had been growing on me for many, many years. Many of them protruded up and out like porcupine quills, only much larger; others were large, solid formations the shape of shark fins, only bigger and thicker, like a dinosaur’s skin. I looked at her, beginning to feel a mixture of fear and shame at the hideous creature she had seen. Again, she must have read my thoughts. ‘Do not let this worry you. This has been your armour for many, many years, even since childhood. It has protected you and kept you safe. It has made you strong and unafraid. But the dinosaurs have gone away now and your dinosaur must go too. You do not need it now. It is old and burdensome. But maybe you do not want to let it go. This is what is causing your pain. You must let this go or it will get heavier and more hurtful. I can take this from you. You must not be afraid.’
‘Yes,’ I said, my voice almost inaudible.
There was the smallest flicker of a smile on Debra’s face and then she was gone again behind my back.
I sat breathlessly, trying to cope with what I had been told. Then I heard a voice behind me mumble something. It was an incredibly old voice and it sounded very unearthly. Slowly, the sound and the cry of the ancient hag’s voice rose in tempo. This primordial thing behind me was wailing and moaning. The pain of this being reverberated inside me. The anguish that was semaphoring behind me was almost unendurable. I couldn’t have turned to look at this thing even if I’d wanted to. Something was happening inside me and behind me that held me where I sat. The power of it immobilized me. I didn’t experience any fear, only that awful pain associated with what was happening behind me.
Then Debra’s hands were on my back – strong, muscular hands. I could feel her making ripping gestures and sighing with the effort. Then she was tearing and wrenching. The voice I could now hear was not the voice I had heard only moments ago. This was Debra’s voice, straining with effort and moaning with pain and exhaustion. It was dreadful, and I could barely endure it. Great sighs of relief and sympathy sounded up from within me. Tears flooded out of me, though I felt no pain. For the next twenty minutes or more Debra invisibly flayed me. Towards the end of this bloody work I could still hear the incredible strain in her voice. She was almost screaming. There was no other living soul to witness her pain and I could do nothing but sit there stunned and endure the psychic recoil coming off it.
Then it was over. I could sense Debra standing behind me, her hands resting heavily on my shoulders.
‘It’s finished,’ she said in a quavering voice. I could feel the whole weight of her body leaning on me. Then she pulled back and I stood up.
‘Are you okay?’ I could only ask, my voice low with anxiety.
‘Yes, yes,’ she answered. ‘Now, go and do whatever you have to do. I need to go away for a few minutes to do something.’ And with that she walked off.
Respect, courtesy, apprehension and confusion washed over me and I walked off in the opposite direction, not daring to let my eyes follow her. I didn’t know what I was expected to do. I possessed no well-defined spiritual understanding or ability to deal with what had just happened between us. I walked towards
the shining emptiness where the sea and the sky met, hoping that maybe it would expunge all the conflicting emotions that were circling around me. When I thought I was far enough away from that stone post on which I had been exorcized, I stopped. I remembered Debra’s comments about the winds of the four quarters. For a few moments I stood and faced the polar extremes. It was some kind of obeisance, and I let the winds of the north, south, east and west blow over me in turn. But there were no winds. I can recall only the constancy of a balmy breeze at every point of my salutation.
I waited for a moment after this rudimentary ritual, then walked back. Debra was already there and she asked me to sit again. I hunkered down on the stone and buried my head in my hands. Debra brushed me down with a handful of spruce telling me only that there were healing properties in the branches.
Everything had changed. All the unbearable tensions and agonizing distress were gone from me. Whatever had taken place on this stone, I was not the victim.
Debra’s mood was light. ‘How do you feel?’ she asked.
‘Like I have just had a bath,’ I answered, without trying to analyse my response.
‘Well, that is exactly what you did have,’ she confirmed, and suggested that we should go back soon. I knew what she meant. We needed a chance to catch our breath and maybe let things embed themselves. We talked easily, sure of this safe place.
‘A Spirit Bear came almost immediately we began,’ Debra explained. ‘It had white flashes across its maw. It was a creature of much power. Normally things don’t happen with such powerful immediacy. My hands were burned almost to the bone.’
I didn’t want to question what had happened. Words often get in the way of experience, or they transmute it. Both Debra and I knew that. I just wanted to sit and soak up everything, let everything find its own place.
‘I want you to come and see something,’ I said. ‘There is a very curious arrangement of stones over here, as if someone had been writing.’ Debra followed me as I retraced my steps to where I had stood facing the winds. ‘You see, look at this. That’s no natural occurrence.’
Debra looked down at the collection of fist-sized stones. ‘I think it says “oneson”,’ she said.
The rubric of the lettering was not precisely outlined as winds or passing animals had disturbed it, but the formation clearly spelled out the word ‘oneson’. The lettering was approximately nine inches to a foot long and was about three and a half to four feet in width. I foolishly thought it might have been a land marker for a helicopter. I knew how far Charlie and Lena’s camp was from civilization, but because of his reputation many people knew where he was. If he or Lena were ill, a helicopter would be the fastest way to get them to a hospital. Debra soon put my thinking straight. This hill would be so deep in snow for ten months of the year that nobody would be able to find it from the air, let alone read these words. In the winter, if it was necessary, a dog sled and driver could get to the camp and get people out quicker than a helicopter. If either of them was so ill as to require evacuation during the winter, how could they have got up this hill anyway? I gave up. My urban thinking had easily been swept away. We walked around for perhaps another hour looking for something else that might explain the imprint of the stones. All we discovered were animal bones, the debris of wolf or bear kills.
It was time to descend the windswept hill. We stumbled and tripped our way through the woods, then pulled ourselves limb by limb through the soggy tundra. I felt more able now, and I was anxious to learn what Charlie or Lena might be able to tell us about the stony cipher. Debra fell in behind me. At times when I seemed utterly lost she would point out the direction we should take. All the time I heard her voice behind me explaining the power of the spirit world. She was convinced by her own travels in this alternative realm, and from our early conversations in Fairbanks, that I too had been introduced and initiated into this other reality.
‘Is that why you contacted me so many years ago with those letters about the Dreamwalker?’ I asked, beginning to see things falling into place.
‘Perhaps,’ she answered. ‘I’m not sure exactly. I only remember that I had to contact you. Sometimes there are requests laid upon us from the spirit people that you simply have to follow through on blind faith and trust.’
‘But the timing was so perfect. Your letters were like a light shining in a dark place. They were the key that enabled me to complete my book.’
Before, she had simply listened. Now, she responded, ‘Well, there you are, you have your answer, and maybe there’s one for me too.’
Throughout our descent Debra’s disembodied voice behind me explained many different aspects of working with the other-world spirits. It was a powerful place, and also a dangerous zone. It must never be taken lightly nor misused. It was a contract between the individual and his or her spirit adviser; it in no way impaired our freedom or our life in this world, though it would unquestionably redirect its course. She spoke of the persons one might encounter in the spirit world. All would not be helpful because some of them are lost themselves. She hinted at changes or sacrifices I might have to make. She was passionate about how the ego was the greatest impediment to understanding, to progressing one’s understanding, and to the ability to ‘travel’ in the spirit world.
I listened to her talking over the hour and a half it took to reach the camp. It was as if all the information she was feeding me was coming from somewhere other than herself. I may have been the leader on the descent but Debra was still the guide. As I tried to comprehend all this different thinking and new understanding that was pouring in on me, I realized just how in need of a guide I was.
At last we reached the clearing that marked our destination and the camp. The cabin was billowing smoke that curled up into the air then disappeared. The thoughts inside my head were like Charlie’s chimney, full of thick smoke that was dissipating before I could see what it might mean.
As we approached the cabin door, Debra came up alongside me, as if to confirm her reality. ‘You should wash your back when you get a chance,’ she said. It was another way of telling me just how close the two worlds are.
Later that evening, Debra and I sat in the kitchen with Lena, drinking herb tea. We asked her about the cryptic stonework we had found. For a few moments she sat silently, though there was much animation in her eyes. Then she walked off and rummaged through some books piled on a shelf. She discovered what she was looking for and handed us a small photo. It was of a small boy about eight or nine years old. He was smiling out at the camera, obviously fond of the person who was taking the picture.
‘This is Oneson,’ she said.
As I passed the photo on to Debra, Lena continued, the animation in her eyes now brightening with tears. ‘Poor Oneson, poor, poor Oneson. It was very sad for him.’
Both Debra and I knew what was coming and for a moment I wished we had not unearthed this memory. But Lena didn’t weep. Instead she told us about one of her daughters (the mother of the child in the photo) who had died from diphtheria, leaving her only child to be cared for by its grandparents. Lena and Charlie named the infant Oneson as he was the one and only son of their daughter. The name became the child’s given name. He spent several years with Lena and Charlie before going to attend school. As a child he learned quickly and was very athletic. He was a favourite with many of his teachers, and the other kids were all drawn to him. Lena called him a special child, and I was sure she was being more than a fond grandmother when she said it.
One day Oneson was out playing with another boy, but after a few hours the other child came home to his parents alone. Everyone thought Oneson was still playing with the other children or had gone home. It was not until many hours later that Charlie and Lena became anxious about Oneson’s whereabouts and people realized he was missing. The young boy he had been playing with said he did not know where Oneson had gone, but the child was withdrawn and uncooperative. Everyone knew a bad thing had happened. Lena declared that there were many bad ome
ns about that day.
Before many more hours had passed Oneson’s body was found with a hunting rifle beside it. The boy was dead. There were no witnesses to what had happened, but the demeanour of his playmate over the next few days suggested much. The boy became more withdrawn; even when he was told of Oneson’s death he kept asking where he had gone. Everyone accepted that a tragic accident had occurred.
It wasn’t until some days after Oneson’s funeral that the truth became apparent. The playmate had constantly been telling everyone that they must never be jealous of other friends. Slowly, it became obvious that some childish jealousy had caused one child to shoot his friend. Now his friend had left him for ever, and sadness and guilt had left the child morose and withdrawn. That was how everyone understood the death of Oneson. But it was an affair of innocence, and Lena and Charlie wanted no more suffering. Oneson was buried where we found the stones. Lena hadn’t been up there for many years. She was too old to go there alone, but she asked if she could go with us the next day.
The remoteness of the camp and the image of the child in the photo made this tragic story very poignant for me, and the quiet stoicism of Lena’s telling of it reinforced it. I thought of my own sons and how they would have loved it here, just like Oneson. But would I have had the practical courage of Lena to endure one tragedy compounded on another? First her daughter, then her daughter’s son. As if she was reading my thoughts, Lena announced, ‘He’s not gone far. I think he heard his mother calling him and he went home to her.’